On some machines, Windows XP needs quite a long time to finish loading. Unfortunately this affects the launch of Tweak-XP. As Windows blocks the Operating System until it has finished loading, Tweak-XP is unable to initialize itself during that period. On some XP installations, when connected to a network, the computer boot time is over 1:40. The system seems to freeze after logging in and the desktop may not appear or will freeze for a minute. It has been found out that the problem was with the driver mrxsmb.dll, adding over 67 seconds to the boot time.

This problem does not appear when there are just very few, or no other programs loaded on startup, and if there's no network configured. The more programs are loaded, and the more network connections are configured, the more likely Tweak-XP cannot launch properly. Especially some Firewall Software (like Norton Internet Security or Personal Firewall do increase booting time enormously on some systems). However - for some reason the problem does not appear on every system.

Solution 1:

Ensure that you have admin rights when you run Tweak-XP Pro.

Solution 2:

If the autostart does not work as it should on your machine, please do this to set a higher 'startup delay timer' for Tweak-XP, which should fix the problem on your machine:

1.) Start regedit.exe from the 'Run' menu of your startmenu 2.) Open this key of the Windows registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Totalidea Software\Tweak-XP 3

or (if you are using v4):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Totalidea Software\Tweak-XP 4

3.) Double click the value 'Delay' when you have opened the key above 4.) Increase the value to 15000 or 20000 (default is 12000). This is a millisecond value; 12000 milliseconds means 12 seconds 5.) Close regedit.exe and set Tweak-XP to autostart with Windows 6.) Depending on your machines speed, Tweak-XP should now load properly. If not, increase the 'Delay' value as mentioned above until Tweak-XP launches properly

BTW: there's no need to have Tweak-XP running in the background all the time, neither to start it with Windows, as all Windows related tuning stuff is independent from Tweak-XP.

Solution 3:

If this does not fix the problem on your machine, then another hardware driver or another software running in the background is in conflict with Tweak-XP.

To find out what software is in conflict with Tweak-XP, do this:

Close ALL other programs running on your machine, including software firewalls, and anti-virus products

Disable any software firewall, and anti virus software, as such programs cause a whole list of problems with lots of other software products, including Tweak-XP.

If nothing of the above fixes the problem, then a hardware driver installed on your machine causes the issue.